Click OK to proceed

Please Sign In with the Adobe ID email address you will be using to access the Creative Cloud while onsite at MAX.
If you do not have an Adobe ID linked to a current membership, Sign Up using an email address you will have access to onsite.

Keynote Speakers

Baz Luhrmann

Filmmaker

Baz Luhrmann grew up in rural Australia. He first became enthralled by the world of movies and the power of storytelling at his father's theatre. He also encountered a variety of interesting people while working at the local gas station, and Luhrmann went on to use these experiences as a source for his own creativity. His most notable works to date are the three films that make up his Red Curtain Trilogy. The Red Curtain style of filmmaking was devised by Luhrmann to actively promote audience participation, and the third movie in the trilogy, Moulin Rouge! (2001), has been his most successful film to date.

Luhrmann’s next filmic effort was the multi-themed Australia (2008), starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman; it unleashed a fierce national debate over its historical accuracy, though its director had not intended a documentary. Luhrmann’s following project was a series of eight short videos—featuring Judy Davis as fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, who died in 1973, and contemporary designer Miuccia Prada—made in conjunction with New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations.”

In 2013 Luhrmann released The Great Gatsby, his much-anticipated version of American icon F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel of the same name. The film starred Leonardo DiCaprio (in his second Luhrmann vehicle) as the title character. It had Luhrmann’s distinctive stamp, not only in its narrative twist—the novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway, is portrayed in the film as the author of the novel—but in its often vertiginous camera work, operatic scenes, anachronistic musical score, and general embrace of excess.

Elle Luna

Designer, Writer

Elle Luna paints, designs and writes. She also runs a textile venture, the Bulan Project, a collaboration between designers and master batik artists in Bali, and has previously worked as a designer at IDEO and with startups, including Mailbox, Medium, and Uber. Her first book, The Crossroads of Should and Must, debuted in April 2015, and she lives in San Francisco and online at elleluna.com.

Nick Offerman

Actor, Writer

Nick Offerman is an actor, writer and woodworker, best known for the role of Ron Swanson on NBC’s hit comedy series “Parks & Recreation.” The show, in which he stars with Amy Poehler, Chris Pratt, and Aziz Ansari, is currently filming its 7th and final season. For his work on the show, Offerman won a Television Critics Association Award for Achievement in Comedy in 2011, having earned his first nomination in 2010. He also received two Critics’ Choice Television Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.

Currently, he can be seen touring his comedy show “Full Bush”. His last tour, “American Ham”, is now streaming on Netflix. Earlier this year, Offerman and his bride, Megan Mullally debuted their “Summer of 69: No Apostrophe” comedy show. In 2013, Offerman released his New York Times Bestselling book, Paddle Your Own Canoe: One Man’s Fundamentals for Delicious Living. His second book is due out in 2015.

Brandon Stanton

Humans of New York

Brandon Stanton studied at the University of Georgia and worked as a bond trader in Chicago before starting “Humans of New York”—a photography and storytelling blog—in the summer of 2010. Over the course of four years, HONY has built a devoted following of over 15 million fans. He has appeared on Ellen, Good Morning America, Nightline, MSNBC, CNN, has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Mashable, and dozens of other media venues. He has also been named a ‘person of the week’ on the ABC Evening News with Diane Sawyer, and a Time Magazine “30 Under 30 Who are Changing the World.” He is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller HUMANS OF NEW YORK and the Children’s book LITTLE HUMANS. His new book HUMANS OF NEW YORK: STORIES will be published in October of 2015.

There are hundreds of sessions, labs, and creativity workshops offered, organized into six tracks.
View Session Catalog ›